Salvage of the U-864

[jpm1]

Originally Posted by PappyCain

Sixty-one years ago a U-boat slipped out of the Baltic port of Kiel, sent by Hitler on a secret voyage to Japan in a mission to avert Germany’s looming defeat.
U864 never reached her destination. She was sunk by the British in the only known case of one submarine destroying another while both were submerged. It is a remarkable tale of wartime derring-do — but one with a sting in the tail.

The wreck now lies, in two pieces, 152 metres (500ft) beneath North Sea waters off the Norwegian coast, and contains 65 tonnes of mercury in 1,857 corroding canisters. It is a toxic timebomb.

“The potential for pollution is unlike anything we have seen in Norwegian history,” said Ane Eide Kjaeras, spokeswoman for the Norwegian Coastal Administration.

The mercury, which was used in weapons production, was U864’s secondary cargo. Her most important load when she left Kiel on her maiden voyage on December 5, 1944, was made up of advanced Messerschmitt jet engine parts, for use in Japanese aircraft.

Hitler apparently believed that if Japan could regain air superiority in the Pacific the United States would have to divert resources from Europe.

British codebreakers at Bletchley Park learnt of Operation Caesar in time, and the Allies dispatched HMS Venturer, a V-Class submarine commanded by Lieutenant Jimmy S. Launders, 25, from the Shetland Islands to intercept U864 as she headed south from Bergen.

Venturer could not use sonic waves to hunt her quarry for fear of betraying her own position and U864, commanded by Captain Ralf-Reimar Wolfram, was able to slip past, only to suffer serious engine trouble later.

Shortly after 9am on February 9, 1945, Venturer detected U864’s engine noise using hydrophones and then spotted her periscope.

The hunt was on.

“We felt a bit shaky because it could sink us the same as we could sink them,” Harry Plummer, an able seaman on Venturer, told a forthcoming BBC Timewatch documentary on the subject.

For three hours Venturer stalked the 87-metre U864 as the German submarine zig- zagged to make herself a harder target. Then Launders gambled, deciding to fire all four of Venturer’s torpedoes even though this would leave her defenceless if they missed.

He calculated U864’s course as best he could, then fired at 17 second intervals. Each torpedo took more than two minutes to reach its target. The first three missed but the fourth broke U864 in half. There was a “loud, sharp explosion followed by breaking-up noises”, Launders wrote in the ship’s log at 12.14pm. Mr Plummer said that it sounded like someone crushing a box of matches.
“It was a relief,” he recalled. But “the next minute we realised it was another submarine and more submariners had been killed . . . When you reflected afterwards you think to yourself, ‘Poor bastards’.”

U864 lay undisturbed on the sea bed, about two kilometres off the island of Fedje, until discovered by the Norwegian Navy in 2003. Underwater pictures show the ghostly wreck covered in seaweed, her bow and stern lying 40 metres apart, her rudder locked in an emergency dive position.

What alarmed the Norwegian authorities were the dangerous levels of mercury contamination on the surrounding seabed, and the discovery of documents indicating that U864 had 65 tonnes of mercury on board. Traces of mercury were also found in fish, raising fears that the cargo could contaminate the food chain.

The Norwegian Coastal Administration monitors about 2,500 wrecks, 400 of them from the Second World War, but this is the most threatening, Gunnar Guellan, the project manager for U864, said. Fishing and boating in the immediate area have been banned and islanders have been told not to eat local seafood.

The Norwegian Coastal Administration has dug up near the keel a single mercury canister. Its 5mm-thick steel wall has been eroded in places to less than a millimetre. The administration can only guess at the condition of the other canisters still inside the wreck

the U-boot seemed to suffer mechanical failures which forced it to go back to port (its engines were abnormally noisy too) , when it was detected by the Venturer the U-boot was waiting for its escort arrival

[jpm1]

Originally Posted by PappyCain

For those who may be interested in a high tech undersea salvage operation you can click on links to images, PDF documents on salvage planning, specialty tooling, animations etc. in below link.


http://www.smit.com/kursk/photos/index.htm


S'
PC

impressive especially when we know the size of a Typhoon

to come back to the u-boot obviously it would be better if the wreck could be taken out of the sea but the problem it's that the u-boot doesn't have the same level of erosion than the Kursk

[Einzelganger]

Originally Posted by jpm1

i think the sending of frog-men to evaluate the erosion status of the shell should be a first sensed step . don't know the mercury lifetime but i think the shell encaping solution should be a viable solution only if the encaping material as a higher lifetime than the mercury as toxic substance

Actually mercury is a natural element so i would assume it would not really degrade over time very much if at all.

The stuff itself is pretty nasty and exposure to even a small amount of mercury can cause medical problems. Over a longer timespan it has the ability ( apart from a lot of other medical problems ) to damage DNA in living cells which will cause a lot more problems down the line.

Can you imagine sitting on top of 67 tons of that stuff let alone it posioning the marine life in that part of the seas ?

And even if they were to encase U-864 i don't really see how they could prevent the mercury from entering the very seafloor this submarine is now resting on. The surrounding soil would get poisoned & eventually mercury would work it´s way into the foodchain again. So, I can understand their desicion to salvage the wreck. It's basically a timebomb waiting to blow.

Having said all that...............

Even with it being a wargrave i don't see why it couldn't be treated with respect. Any remains found onboard could either be laid to rest somewhere ashore or perhaps be given a new burial at sea somehow, somewhere.

Just my $0.02

[Stealth Hunter]

I really wouldn't be that concerned about it. The oceans are still fine even after we've dumped all sorts of crap into it, ranging from sewage to toxic waste. A little mercury isn't going to help anything, but it certainly isn't going to destroy everything. Don't get me wrong. I hate it when people litter the sea, but I think they're making a big deal out of nothing here, and with the said, is it really worth spending millions to tamper with the wreck of a World War II submarine with a small cargo of mercury entombed inside its hulk?

[Einzelganger]

Stealth Hunter, I'm not willing to offend anyone here but i do think you should take a bit more time to look at what you are saying here.

I've seen a documentary on Discovery about a team investigating a part of the sea somewhere in Asia where, due to vulcanic gasses being released from the oceanfloor, the water had higher concentrations of mercury in it.

As a result it killed off a lot of life and corals in the area. Sure, life did adapt to it over the hunderds of years this was going on but was nowwhere near the level of what it could have been.

Intresting sidenote, for the people in that area fishing to provide them with food for their communities was impossible as the concentration of mercury within fish was so high it would be suicide just to eat anything from it.

Originally Posted by Stealth Hunter

Is it really worth spending millions to tamper with the wreck of a World War II submarine with a small cargo of mercury entombed inside its hulk?

Do you have any idea how much 67.000 kg / 147709 lbs of that stuff is. U-864 is corroding and that mercury won't stay inside there forever. If that was lying somewhere near you and you knew about the damage it could do to you and will do to your environment you'd be happy someone was taking care of it.

As with a lot of things nature can partly take care her of herself but there´s only so much it can handle before things will remain affected.There are a lot of places in the world where this is already the case.

Although it would be easy to ignore the area and problems with regards to the fishing stock for future generations i think the Norwegian authorities deserve some respect for willing to take some responsability rather then leaving it for future generations to deal with.

[_Seth_]

Today, the Norwegian government decided to raise the U-864, due to the possible environmental damage all the mercury onboard could cause
Link to norwegian newspaper: http://www.bt.no/lokalt/hordaland/article782736.ece

[Kapt Z]

Isn't the sunken 'german' u-boat still official 'german' property??? Does Germany have a say in all this?

I certainly hope they don't run into problems in the salvage attempt....

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by Kapt Z

Isn't the sunken 'german' u-boat still official 'german' property??? Does Germany have a say in all this?

I certainly hope they don't run into problems in the salvage attempt....

Should really be classed as a war grave but I think the enviromental impacts outwiegh all other concerns at the moment

Whats that cost equate too Seth ?

som vil koste rundt en milliard kroner.

[_Seth_]

Originally Posted by bigboywooly

Whats that cost equate too Seth ?

About 1 billion Norwegian kroner, app. 147 million, 717033 thousand dollars.. But i think this number will be larger, since noone really knows how the technical state of the vessel is.

[Kapt Z]

Originally Posted by bigboywooly

Should really be classed as a war grave but I think the enviromental impacts outwiegh all other concerns at the moment

Oh, I agree on the necessity. I was just curious if the Norwegians had to get a ok from the German gov't.

[danurve]

Well I wouldn't want poison in my water supply or food chain, and it looks as if the decision has been made yes? I am worried that any goofy liberal government or organization will see this as a precedent to be able to raise any war grave out of possible concern for the environment.

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by danurve

Well I wouldn't want poison in my water supply or food chain, and it looks as if the decision has been made yes? I am worried that any goofy liberal government or organization will see this as a precedent to be able to raise any war grave out of possible concern for the environment.

At the cost mentioned by Seth I doubt it
During various research hunts have read more than one diving site
A few times has been mentioned that parts of boats have been stripped by souvenir hunters inc those designated war graves
A lot of sites out there to protect

I doubt there are many wrecks out there with such a timebomb as U 864 carried and as close to a coastline

Worse then the enviromental concerns disturbing War Graves?
Is the fact of pre-Nuclear Steel.
All Steel made today contains radioactive particals
from all the past testing.

Make Steel today?
It's got radioacive stuff in it from the air.

All the Ships and such sunk dureing the War
that were built prior to testing of Atomic weapons
are now, and will become even more, in demand.

Back in 1995 there was stated intent to raise 300 German U-Boats
just for the Steel.

Although it was never done as I recall.

[Jimbuna]

Who will pick up the tab/bill.....Norway or will it be a joint financial package?

[Reece]

Seem that only the rear of the sub will be raised:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=OUy0laGmLTQ